


Plans Carefully Placed

by Rellanka



Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [31]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Exploring the possible powers available with the Lifestream, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sephiroth, The Lifestream (Compilation of FFVII)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka
Summary: Sephiroth watches. And maybe a tiny bit more.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697269
Comments: 5
Kudos: 214





	Plans Carefully Placed

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, I'm tentatively back. Life has been awful in a way that only other people who have abusive, alcoholic, now demented stepfamily members that they are forced to help care for could understand. 
> 
> More importantly, innocent Black men and women are being beaten and killed in the streets and that is more awful than I could ever possibly express. Fuck anyone who doesn't agree that Black Lives Matter. Please stay safe out there you guys, I love you all.

Sephiroth watched closely through Cloud’s own eyes as one of Cloud’s new companion’s (new friends?) smiled cheerily and clasped a hand to Cloud’s shoulder. 

Sephiroth’s own skin, hundreds of miles away and still being pieced together from the thousands of atoms it had dissolved into, tingled both at the phantom second-hand sensation he got from Cloud and at the fierce, burning rage that overwhelmed Sephiroth at that feeling. 

How dare that man? How dare he even think to touch what didn’t- and never would- belong to him? How **dare** he do what Sephiroth, currently, could not? 

Sephiroth snarled in a temporarily impotent rage, stretching out through the connection between he and Cloud while causing the cells that connected them to go reactive, pushing through Cloud’s physical and mental barriers until Cloud finally darted away from the man that had dared to touch him and stood panting in a hallway instead. 

Sephiroth delighted in the way his little puppet was now dreading another one of Sephiroth’s own appearances, mind focused on Sephiroth, and Sephiroth alone.

 _Good. Good, Cloud. The only one you ever need to be concerned with is_ me _. **Don’t** make the mistake of forgetting that again._ Sephiroth purred in the deepest corners of Cloud’s mind, deciding not to follow that up by making an appearance; not yet. 

Better to save his strength for later, when he could see if his theory was correct. 

For now, Cloud was fully and wholly fixated on Sephiroth, and that soothed his ire enough that he was able to recede back into the depths of Cloud’s subconscious and gather his strength. 

He had plans for the night, and it would be foolish to allow his current impatience to ruin them.

***

The next time Sephiroth swam to the forefront of his puppet’s consciousness, Cloud was sleeping. His mind was so moldable, so vulnerable when he was in that state. Sephiroth was deeply tempted to dive into Cloud’s dreams, to join him there and do all the things that he so desired to do; to show the puppet how thoroughly he **belonged** to Sephiroth. 

But that was an idea to be considered later, after Sephiroth’s questions as to just how much he could affect the physical world in this state was answered. 

Using his knowledge and control over the Lifestream, Sephiroth slowly stretched his awareness from Cloud’s own to the room around Cloud. The foolish rabble that made up the majority of the human race truly didn’t know just how deeply the Lifestream was entrenched in their world, didn’t realize that its invisible presence surrounded them constantly in the very air itself. 

Sephiroth, having achieved a greatness none of them would ever realize, **did** know. And he used that knowledge to fashion himself a body out of air and light. 

It wasn’t quite the same as what he’d done before, causing his puppet to see him as if he were actually there. It wasn’t the same as using one of his other puppets, and making Cloud believe that they wore his form. It was something inherently different, a technique that required an entirely different sort of mental and magical control, and Sephiroth practiced solidifying his form as if he were flexing a new muscle and discovering its capabilities. 

Slowly, Sephiroth began taking shape in the room, transparent but growing more opaque as the seconds past and Sephiroth used all of his strength, all of his focus to achieve something **solid**. When Sephiroth felt that he’d reached the extent of his current ability he paused, displeased by the fact that he still had not managed a truly corporeal form. It was a failure he was unequipped to deal well with, when the feeling had come so rarely to him before. Clearly, more practice needed to be done before he would be able to use this skill for all that he had intended it for. 

But someone had once told him that all things of worth required effort, and perhaps Sephiroth would take that philosophy here. 

Cloud, after all, would _always_ be worth it. 

Turning to gaze at his precious little puppet, Sephiroth brushed tender fingers across his forehead to move away a few wild locks of hair. The hair only moved the slightest fraction before his fingers passed through it, but Sephiroth almost fancifully believed that he could feel Cloud’s skin beneath their touch. Silky and smooth, the sensation racing through Sephiroth like lightning, accompanied by the newly awakened _hunger_ to claim every inch of that skin as his own. Even fainter, beneath Sephiroth’s own roiling emotions, was the unconscious sensation of Cloud feeling _something_ tracing across his skin; but the sensation was so faint and Cloud so unaware that it could have been the air, or perhaps even Sephiroth’s wistful imagination. (Wistful. Sephiroth wasn’t familiar with that emotion, either.) 

Sephiroth continued staring down at his puppet, thinking of all the things he wished to do when he finally had the ability. He would **take** his puppet, push inside him so deep he would never truly leave again. He would mark him, thoroughly and deeply, so that none who looked at him would be unable to deny who he belonged to. He would cup his puppet’s face and turn his eyes away from anything but Sephiroth alone. He would hold Cloud close, and ensure that he would never have to let Cloud go again. He would ensure that the only being that would ever touch Cloud from that point on was **Sephiroth**. 

But those, unfortunately, were goals that could not be accomplished at the present time. To gain Cloud, and to gain the power that he needed to take them both to the world that they would remake together, he must have patience and see his plans to fruition without rushing through. 

And so he would wait, and set up his pieces with a perfectionist’s flair. 

And put forth that effort that he’d been advised about, so long ago.


End file.
